SAXONBURG — They had winter meetings.

They had a draft complete with team owners in suits, a big board and players walking up on stage to take a picture with their new jersey.

They had a franchise tag.

They have six unique parks with their own nooks, crannies and dimensions.

Major League Wiffle Ball is huge in Saxonburg. About 50 current and former Knoch High School students encompass the six-team Wiffle ball circuit, which is wrapping up its second season.

This one more successful than the first.

“We don't mess around,” said Spencer Kale, who is MLWB commissioner and owner of the Southern Butler Golden Foxes, who are currently in a heated championship series with rival Saxonburg Strike Force.

A few rule changes made a world of difference. In year two, there is a strike zone, constructed of PVC pipe and a square of sheet metal that is positioned behind the plate.

It has dropped the average score of games significantly.

“Last year things got a little bogged down,” said Kale, a 2014 Knoch grad and student at University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. “People were waiting for their pitch like a home run derby. Now the pitcher can really control the game.”

Kale and a group of his friends came up with the idea last spring and it evolved into a Wiffle ball league with home parks and a 15-game schedule.

The schedule was reduced to 12 games and the league split up into two divisions, creatively named the Greater Route 8 and the Pennsylvania 3.

Each team owner had the option this off-season to place a franchise tag on one of his players from last season.

Adam Albert, a 2014 Knoch grad and student at Penn State University, decided to tag the No. 1 overall pick from the league's inaugural year, Peyton Maziarz.

And not his own brother, Aiden Albert.

“I thought I could get him back without having to use a franchise tag on him and I did get him back in the second round,” Adam Albert explained. “He was a little sour about it. I'm glad I got him back because he's a pretty dang good pitcher for us.”

That was another positive change this season — the pitching evolved.

Each team has a solid No. 1 starter.

“Each team has concrete pitchers who know how to hit the strike zone,” Adam Albert said. “Each game gets more and more like real baseball. One game we played was 6-3.”

There is some serious talent in the league, including Knoch baseball players who won a PIAA Class AAA championship this summer.

“That's awesome. You're going against a state champion pitcher with Cole Shinsky and Alex Stobert,” said Nick Cunningam, also a 2014 Knoch grad, student at Butler County Community College and owner of the Ivywood Gardensnakes.

There is also some serious competition.

“The games get serious,” Adam Albert said. “They can get heated, really heated.”

Cunningham's home field, fittingly named Cunningham Yards, is the hub of the league with its short right field fence, that also doubles as a shed, bunting on the orange snow fence that serves as the outfield wall, and chalked baselines.

But the league also boasts of other fields with their own nuances.

“That's what I kind of like about the league,” Adam Albert said. “At first we kind of wanted to have it at a singular place, but we all kind of went back home to our backyards and thought, 'You know what, I think we can do this. We can make some fields.'”

As Kale said, they don't mess around.

At the winter meetings, the owners discussed how to keep the league alive long-term.

“I didn't think it would go to a second year, to be honest with you,” Adam Albert said. “Especially with all of us doing jobs and summer internships. But we had winter meetings. It sounds so funny to say we had winter meetings, but we did.

“A lot of the reason why this league is still going is because of Spencer and his detail with everything. The draft, the strike zone, the franchise tag, the unique home fields — stuff like that kind of kept it together. I think without that it would have disbanded.”

The draft was held at Jazzercise in Butler. Team owners wore suits and each team had jerseys for their new (and sometimes old) players.

A big board of players was projected on a big screen on the stage, each name erased as they were selected.

Adam Albert's draft dripped with strategy.

His home park has an extremely short right field fence, so he loaded up on left-handed hitters.

He also drafted younger players to keep scheduling conflicts down.

The younger players are the future of the league.

“We plan to have this for at least a couple more years,” Kale said. “Once we get out of college, we have enough young guys who should be able to keep this going.”

To Cunningham, that is the most important thing that has come out of the league.

He and his friends have stayed close and he has hung out with others who he would have never struck up a friendship with otherwise.

“We're a close group. We always have been,” Cunningham said. “With the age difference, a lot of people would be shocked to see kids two or three or more years apart playing against each other. Usually, you wouldn't see those two groups hanging out with each other in the summer.”